Private Label Scam

Not really a “scam” but more of a marketing ploy to prevent you the consumer from shopping using the old “apples to apples” comparison technique. Its kind of like buying a mattress, you can find the exact same mattress under 10 different “names” depending on where you shop. In the case of carpet, the most prevalent use of “private labels” is found in the the big box retailers, and large buying group stores like the Carpet One Chain of carpet stores. In this case, Carpet One uses the Bigelow label as if Bigelow made the carpet, when in fact, Carpet One bought the name Bigelow from Mohawk industries, and can use the “Bigelow” label on any carpet they choose. Yes, Bigelow is an old time mill, but they don’t make residential carpet any more. Furthermore, Burlington Industries sold the “Lee’s” name to carpet one, and thus , like the Bigelow name, we will see carpets with the Lees name on them that are really made by any mill Carpet One selects. Private labeling is now so prolific, that most larger carpet dealers use some sort of private labeling to keep true comparison shopping to a minimum.